An April 8, 1976 file photo shows French former actress Brigitte Bardot stroking a baby seal in fecamp, northern France. The seal was saved by sailors from hunting and left in Brigitte Bardot who fights against seal-hunting. Getty Images

Back in the last century, when raging against the seal hunt in Newfoundland was all the rage, French actress and model Brigitte Bardot showed up to lend her voice to the protest.

She was called a sex kitten back then. Today, such terminology is universally frowned upon as politically incorrect.

Different times, different correctness.

One member of the press contingent, during a lighter moment, asked the star why she was “f—king with les phoques.”

Today, at least in Quebec, you can use both words on French television and radio. Apparently, the F-word is less vulgar in Quebec and, les phoque, of course, is French for seals.

A June 4, 1977 file photo shows French actress Brigitte Bardot attending the international feline exhibition in Saint-Tropez, southern France. Carefree sensuality oozed from every pore as Brigitte Bardot, who turns 80 on September 28, 2014 mamboed her way to fame, leaving men weak at the knees and drawing a generation of liberated young women in her wake. Half a century on, the big wispy hair and hourglass silhouette immortalised by the 1950s sex symbol still inspire designers the world over, though the real-life Bardot has long abandoned the limelight in favour of animal rights activism. AFP PHOTO-/AFP/Getty Images

Just don’t try to use the F-word” on the English channels, not just in Quebec but anywhere in Canada.

It will have you in the sights of the airwaves police, and have the Canadian Broadcast Standards Council howling for your hide Quebecers are an interesting lot. They know how to vote strategically and decisively. When they got tired of the arrogance and one-man-show of Denis Coderre, they bounced him last week as mayor of Montreal and replaced him, for the first time, with a woman.

When the Trudeau Liberals decided not to tax Netflix, the Liberal government in Quebec figuratively told their federal friends to go F-themselves — en francais seulement, of course — and began ramping up plans to tax all foreign online trade as of 2018.

Quebec Finance Minister Carlos Leitao arrives for a dinner meeting with Federal Finance Minister Bill Morneau and his provincial and territorial counterparts, in Ottawa, Sunday, June 18, 2017. Leitao tells reporters he has sent a letter to his federal counterpart, Bill Morneau, and has invited the Liberal government to rethink its position to not tax the online-streaming service. Fred Chartrand/The Canadian Press

And they are probably not wrong. Netflix, after all, is little more than a transnational vulture feeding itself on cash from countries where it often has few, if any, assets.

It’s a path the Trudeau crowd should consider taking. It they tax corporate revenue the same way they go after small business and the middle class, then maybe the Liberal deficit wouldn’t be so bad and it wouldn’t be necessary to consider taxing low-earning retail sales clerks for their staff discounts, or food court workers for their cheaper bowl of noodles.

A sociologist with McGill University told the Canadian Press the F-word, a so-called English obscenity, is fairly commonly used by French speakers during informal conversations.

“I think it doesn’t have as much of a vulgar connotation as it does in English because it’s not a French word,” said McGill’s Chantal Bouchard. “Traditionally, Quebecers have a rich repertoire of swear words, more often taken from religion, but since younger generations haven’t experienced the period in which the Catholic church had great authority, these swears have lost a lot of their impact.”

So, out the door goes “tabernac,” and in comes the F-word.

The new name for Radio-Canada is seen on a billboard next to its building Wednesday, June 5, 2013 in Montreal. The French-language CBC has announced plans to change its name and will be known in French by the name “ICI” – which means “here,” in French. Paul Chiasson/THE CANADIAN PRESS

As it turns out, it was the complaint of a single listener in Quebec that prompted the Canadian Broadcast Standards Council to do an investigation, and ultimately give its ruling. It centred on two situations — two months apart — on the same radio station, CKOI-FM, when the listener heard clips of the rock star Madonna, and later the lead singer from Green Day, drop the F-bomb.

Madonna’s came during her speech to the Women’s March on Washington around the time of the U.S. election, and the F-bomb by Green Day’s Billie Joe Armstrong came after the show played clips of the punk rocker’s expletive-laden rant in the middle of a 2012 concert.

The council ruled neither breached any broadcast codes.

The primary language of the show was in French. The use of the F-bomb was infrequent. And the word was not used to insult or attack an individual or a group.

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